PLANET OF PERIL (35) – HILOBROW

PLANET OF PERIL (35) – HILOBROW

Sexist advertising. "A friend recently pointed out to me that the cover illustration on the Battleship board game from 1967 depicts dad and son having fun while mom and sis look on approvingly from the kitchen — where they are doing the dishes. I remember playing Battleship, probably a few years after the game was released (certainly at someone else’s house as there is no way my WWII naval combat survivor father would have allowed it in ours). I already sensed, at a very early age, that some things about being female were unfair, but the cozy after-dinner scene on Battleship’s box cover didn’t register as one of them. Why would it have? Images of girls and women sitting on the sidelines while they watched boys and men doing things were ubiquitous in mid-twentieth century advertising. Sometimes a girl watched her brother do things, like play the organ, shoot a pellet gun inside the house, or blow up an incredibly phallic balloon. Sometimes, as in a very odd ad that appeared in a 19__ issue of Boy’s Life, a girl watches a boy who watches birds while holding a typewriter on his lap. Something about her mild leer suggests he is not her brother."